Blog 10. 11/27/2011

We did not have class this week due to Thanksgiving break. So, I do not really have anything class related to blog about.

Blog 9. 11/20/2011

This past week in class we talked about several things. On Tuesday, Dr. Thatcher was not present and we watched two videos. The two videos we watched were episodes of a television show called "The IT Crowd." "The IT Crowd," is a British sitcom that revolves around three staff members of an IT department. The show focuses on the shenanigans of the three-strong IT support team. Two of the main characters are Moss and Trenneman who are technicians. The third main character is Jenn Barber who is the department's relationship manager. However, in one of the episodes we watched, there was a third IT worker who was a main character. I found both of the episodes we watched in class to be very funny. I thought that the episodes were very witty and hilarious.

Blog 8. 11/13/2011

This week in class we talked about hackers stealing people's passwords to various things. We talked about cracking in class, which is the process of recovering passwords from data that has been stored in or transmitted by a computer system. We discussed different ways that passwords are stored. One of the ways is in databases that describe who you are. Passwords are also stored as a one way function. Passwords can also be encrypted, some of which are picture based. In class we also talked about the anonymous attack. The anonymous attack is when people hack your password because either it has a weak encryption, they use guessing, they use the dictionary method, or they use brute force. Identifiable attacks on a password were also discussed in class. Examples of identifiable attacks are social engineering, dumpster diving, wiretapping, and shoulder surfing. Social Engineering can be pretexting, phishing, or baiting. We also discussed Kevin Mitnick, who is one of the most infamous hackers. There are three factors that determine how fast a hacker can get to your data. 1. Length/complexity of password 2. Speed of PC 3. Speed of internet connection.

Blog 7. 11/06/2011

I was sick and not able to attend class this week, but I believe what we talked about was the economics of abundance. The economics of abundance deal with cross subsidies. "Freemiums" were also discussed. Zero marginal cost to distribution was discussed because costs are incurred in production and things can be distributed with no appreciable costs to anyone. Labor exchange and a gift economy was also discussed in the lecture on the economics of abundance. The concept of "waste is good" was also talked about in class. Scarcity and abundance were also talked about in the lecture. Scarcity is "No," and abundance is "Yes."